I think F-Droid is a great way to discover apps, but I'm not sure I would trust a binary downloaded from its repository the same I trust a binary downloaded from the app's official website or repository. I also remember a few apps clearly stating the F-Droid repo was a few versions behind and the "right" way was to install from their page.
Anyway, this might all become moot very soon if Google prevents us from installing anything from 3rd-party sources.
The builds are reproducible. Developers can also choose to fetch binaries directly from their repositories, and fdroid will verify that those binaries match the sources. So this is actually safer than downloading directly from developer's repo.
meredithbloom · · focus · HN ↗
Anyway, this might all become moot very soon if Google prevents us from installing anything from 3rd-party sources.
potamic · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Reproducible_Builds" rel="nofollow">https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Reproducible_Builds